


Remus Lupin and the Lunar Disease

by hastyquickbeam



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Bipolar Disorder, Depression, Gen, Hogwarts, Manic Episode, Marauders' Era, Mental Health Issues, The Marauder's Map
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-21
Updated: 2018-01-04
Packaged: 2019-02-18 04:27:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13092387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hastyquickbeam/pseuds/hastyquickbeam
Summary: James Potter and friends are exploring for the Marauder's Map, but Remus Lupin has manic depression which is interfering with their progress. Remus' friends try to help him cope with the illness while they discover new secrets of the castle.





	1. First Full Moon

**Author's Note:**

> Remus’ disease resembles the muggle illness bipolar disorder, or manic depression. The difference is that the magical version follows the phases of the moon.  
> Also, Remus is not a werewolf.  
> This story is dedicated to anyone who has a friend or family member with a mental illness.  
> 

James Potter woke with a start. Remus Lupin was standing over his bed, having just pulled back the curtains. James could see a bit of predawn light filtering through the window.

"Bugger off! Why did you wake me up?"

"Because you have to see what I found in the common room!"

James groaned, "why are you awake so early?"

"Come on James, you have to see this!"

"I'll look later," said James, rolling over and turning away from Remus.

“No James,” Remus said louder “Come and see this!”

“All right, fine dammit! If it shuts you up I’ll come and see it.”

“Great,” said Remus, smiling. “Come with me!”

They walked down the stairs to the common room, James yawning. When they got there, James looked around. The red and gold wall decorations looked the same as always, the floor was clean, and the comfy chairs were in their normal positions. “What is it?”

“It’s these books!” Remus said pointing at some books on a table. “Come here and look at them!”

James walked over. “It looks like a pile of books,” he said skeptically.

“But don’t you see it!?”

“See what? What is this?”

“It looks like a prick!”

James stared at the pile of books. Okay, he conceded to himself, it does kind of look like a prick. But still. “You woke me up this?” he said incredulously.

“I know, isn’t it great!?”

“No, it’s not great. It’s kind of funny, sure. But it’s not great.” James stared at the books a bit longer and wished he had stayed in bed. “I’m going back to bed.”

“Okay.” said Remus, sounding disappointed and a little confused. “I’ll see you later, I guess.”

“Yeah. I’ll see you later,” James said, somewhat unkindly. He was too frustrated to feel bad about that as he walked up to bed and tried to get back to sleep.

By breakfast James had decided not to be angry about the book pile prick incident. He had breakfast as usual with Remus, Sirius Black, and Peter Pettigrew. Sirius had slick black hair and was quite handsome. Peter was small and looked a bit like a rat.

It was only breakfast, but Remus was acting like the life of the party. He was cracking jokes, telling stories, and giving his opinion on whatever subject came up. He even turned around to some girls at the Ravenclaw table and gave his opinion on women’s hats fashion, which they had been talking about. James enjoyed it all so much that he forgot about being angry with Remus.

In Transfiguration class that day, Remus was fidgety and talking to Sirius so much that Dumbledore had to tell him three times to be quiet and pay attention. After the third time Remus contained himself, but it seemed to James like it took a great effort.

James’ thoughts turned to that night. He and Remus planned to go out after hours wearing his father’s invisibility cloak. Now that they were in fourth year, they could only fit two under the cloak at a time. Remus had seemed so excited about it that Sirius happily let Remus take his turn tonight. James couldn’t wait for the night to come.

“Mr. Potter, do you know how to stop the teapot transfiguration from becoming unstable?”

“Umm,” he said lamely, “I don’t know, professor.”

“Well, I commend your honesty, and I appreciate your attention,” Dumbledore said with a twinkle in his eye. How had Dumbledore know that James wasn’t paying attention? He decided to give Dumbledore his full attention for the rest of the lesson.

The night couldn’t come soon enough, but finally, it did. James and Remus waited until the midnight when the common room was mostly empty, then silently crept through the tunnel, past the portrait, and into the hall.

They were working on a project they had started in their third year. They were making a map of the Hogwarts castle and grounds, complete with whatever secret passages they could find. They walked carefully to the second floor and turned right to map out another corridor. James had brought a parchment and quill, which he used to take notes on the layout.

By 2 am they had mapped out two more corridors. “I’m getting tired,” James said. “Let’s head back.” 

“Not yet,” protested Remus, a little too loudly. Peeves the Poltergeist heard them and swooped over. “What’s this? Whee students out of bad?” James and Remus stood dead still and silent. Eventually Peeves got bored and wandered off to rattle some suits of armor down the corridor. 

James let out a relieved breath. “That was close.”

“Yeah but it was exciting!”

“You’re right” James was smiling “Let’s get one more corridor”

By 5 am James was yawning alarmingly and nearly stumbling. Remus, meanwhile, looked wide awake and ready to keep going.”

“I need to go back now,” yawned James.

“No, just a little bit more!”

“I’m serious. I’m going back now, and I’m taking the cloak with me”

“Oh you’re no fun,” said Remus petulantly. “But okay, I’ll go back.”

James finally got into bed at 5:30. He wasn’t looking forward to the morning, but the night had been so fun he didn’t care.


	2. First Waning Moon

Sirius looked up from his homework to glance at his friends gathered around. Peter, James, and Remus were gathered around him in cushy chairs. They were in a corner of the common room near a window because they weren’t old enough yet to claim seats near the fire. They had been working on homework for a few hours now, and he was getting bored.  
  
Remus Lupin looked up from his history of magic essay. “Sirius, are you lost?”  
  
“What?”  
  
“You look like you don’t know where you are,” Lupin said, smiling.  
  
Sirius looked down at his own history of magic essay. He was having trouble keeping track of which goblin uprising he was writing about this time. “I guess I am getting sort of lost in all this goblin muck.”  
  
Remus smiled. “I know what you mean.”  
  
From the way that Remus had been confidently writing on his parchment, Sirius doubted this very much.  
  
“I’m tired of these stupid goblins,” added James, looking up from his essay. “I wish people would clear out,” he lowered his voice “so we can get started for the night.”  
  
Tonight It was Sirius’ turn to go exploring with James. James always went, because it was his cloak. Peter never went, but Sirius hoped that eventually they could convince him to go. It would do him good to take a risk and have some excitement.  
  
Eventually the common room cleared out and Sirius and James left around midnight and made their way down to the dungeons. James seemed a little jumpy at the dark, but Sirius wasn’t worried. They were in Hogwarts. What could happen? Worst case, a teacher finds them. But that wouldn’t happen because they had the cloak. “Don’t worry so much.” He told James.  
  
“I’m not worrying.”  
  
“Then stop jumping at shadows.”  
  
“I’m not jumping.” James protested. But after that Sirius noticed that James made an effort to look more calm and collected.  
  
They walked down a long straight corridor with rough stone walls and no doors. It was getting very dark, so James took out his wand and said, “Lumos.” The moved forward by the light of the wand tip.   
  
“This must lead to something good,” said James. Sirius thought he must be right. They kept walking and the passageway seemed to go on forever. Finally they reached the end and found a stone wall with no sign of a door.  
  
“Well, that’s a let down,” said James.  
  
“Yeah it is, I was really expecting something good.”  
  
“Maybe the door only appears sometimes.”  
  
There was nothing else to do, so they turned around. The corridor seemed a lot shorter as they walked back. Sirius felt disappointed that they hadn’t found anything. “Let’s head somewhere else,” he said.  
  
“No, I’m getting tired,” replied James. “Let’s head back”  
  
Sirius wanted to keep exploring, but it would feel good to get plenty of sleep that night. “All right, we can go back.”  
  
“Good, I need the sleep.”  
  
When they got to the common room, they found that Remus and Peter had already gone to bed. In fact the common room was empty, so they stepped out of the cloak and sat by the dying embers of the fire for a while before walking up to the dormitory for a good night’s sleep.


	3. First New Moon

There was something wrong with Remus; that’s why Peter had been trying to stay away from him.  
  
“This has happened before,” Sirius was saying. “Every month he seems to get a little under the weather.”  
  
“It’s never been like this,” said James. “This is much more than under the weather.”  
  
Peter supposed he couldn’t avoid talking about Remus, so he added: “Well, what can we do about it?”  
  
“We don’t know what to do about it,” James said bitterly. “We don’t even know what it is.”  
  
They had started noticing things a few days ago. Remus was talking less and not raising his hand to answer questions in class. He would stay silent for hours at a time while they did homework in the common room and had started going to bed earlier. Then yesterday he had been so slow getting out of bed that he had missed breakfast. He made it to lunch and all of his classes, but as soon as the last class finished, he went straight back to bed. James had asked him: “are you okay?” but Remus just said “I’m fine,” in a flat voice.  
  
Peter looked at his friends. The silence was getting uncomfortable. “We could ask a teacher.” Peter suggested, desperate to break the silence.  
  
“No, he’s our mate! We can’t do that to him!” Sirius protested.  
  
“Why not? said James thoughtfully “This isn’t like snitching on him after he’s stolen something. If he was sick, we would tell Madame Hallpepper about it.”  
  
“But he’s not sick. This is,” Sirius paused, “it’s just not the sort of thing you tell teachers about.”  
  
Peter understood that. There were lots of things they would never tell teachers, and this situation with Remus felt so personal.  
  
“Well then there’s nothing to be done, is there,” said James, sounding defeated. “We just have to wait and hope that he gets better.  
  
They went back to their homework but Peter’s heart wasn’t in it, and from they way James and Sirius kept exchanging worried glances he was sure that they weren’t really thinking about homework either.   
  
After they had been pretending to do homework for a few hours, Sirius started discussing their plans for the night. “I thought we could start mapping out the corridors on the fourth floor,” he was saying.  
  
“I don’t really feel like going out tonight,” said James. “Do you know what I mean?”  
  
Sirius was silent for a moment. “Yes, I do,” he said slowly. “Let’s just do this homework a bit more.”  
  
“It feels like I’ve been reading the same passage over and over for an hour now,” James complained.  
  
“Yeah, me too,” said Sirius. “It’s hard to concentrate with…” His voice trailed off. He didn’t say why it was hard to concentrate, but they all knew what he meant. They looked at each other sadly then pretended to do home work for another half hour.  
  
When they went to bed, quietly so as not to disturb Remus, Peter saw a dim light through the curtains of Remus’ bed and noticed the sound of pages turning. Pretending not to notice, they all changed into their pajamas and climbed into bed.  
  
Peter lay awake for a long while. Normally he would have heard James snoring by now, but the room was dead silent but for the occasional sound of a page slowly turning.


	4. First Waxing Moon

It was two weeks since something had been so very wrong with Remus, and no one was talking about it.

He had gradually gotten better, day by day, and when he was halfway normal James had tried to ask: “Remus, what happened? Are you okay?” but Remus just brushed him off and said it was nothing. By now things were back to normal and everyone had tacitly agreed not to talk about it.

Sirius especially hadn’t wanted to talk about it. He felt really uncomfortable about the whole thing. He was used to avoiding talking about things he was ashamed of. Pretty much everything about his family ashamed him so he pretended they didn’t exist. That’s why he was in Gryffindor when all of his family had been Slytherin. That’s why he didn’t keep pictures of his family by his bed like the other boys.

Still, they had talked about it a little. Once Remus was halfway back to normal, James, Sirius, and Peter sat down together to talk.

“I’m still worried about Remus,” said James.

“He’s getting back to normal, what’s there to worry about?” asked Sirius.

“There’s plenty to worry about!” said James. “Don’t forget that he’s always seemed a little down during the new moon. This time was the worst yet. What if next time is even worse?”

“Then we worry about it next time,” said Sirius. He was actually worried, but he wasn’t about to admit it.

“We can keep an eye on him, and worry about it only if it comes up,” volunteered Peter.

“You’re right, I think that’s what we should do,” agreed Sirius.

James looked uncertain, but he didn’t protest. That was the the last they had said on the subject.

Now they were sitting in the common room and making plans for the night. Sirius was trying to convince Peter to go exploring with James.

“Come on Peter, you have to do this eventually and the excitement will be good for you.”

“He’s right you know,” said Remus. 

“But I wouldn’t be any help,” protested Peter. “I’d just get in the way.”

“Nonsense,” said James. “You’re not half as useless as you think you are.”

“I’m not going. It’s just not my sort of thing.”

“Alright fine. If you won’t go then I will.” Sirius made an effort to sound disappointed. He did genuinely want Peter to go, but if he was honest with himself, he wanted to go even more.

James and Sirius waited until the common room was only half empty, then took a risk by putting on the invisibility cloak in their dormitory and sneaking to the tunnel, hoping not to bump into anyone. Luck was with them; they made it down the stairs, through the common room, through the tunnel, and past the portrait of the fat lady without attracting any notice.

They decided to return to the long corridor in the dungeons. This time it felt even longer than before; they were thinking about turning back when they abruptly came upon the end of the passage. Again there was no door, but this time there was a suit of armor waiting for them, a threatening presence which towered 3 feet above them. It felt like the eyes were watching them. 

“What the hell?” said Sirius, feeling a bit unsettled.

“Can these things walk?” wondered James.

“I don’t know, but I don’t like this thing.”

They stood silently for a while, looking at the suit of armor and letting it glare back at them. Once the silence got uncomfortable, Sirius said: “let’s go, this was a waste of time.”

“I don’t think so. Now we know there’s something interesting about this corridor.”

“What so interesting about a suit of armor?” asked Sirius, getting annoyed.

“I don’t know, but I just feel like there’s something special about this corridor. If we keep trying I’m sure we’ll find something eventually.”

“Well we found nothing here tonight, so let’s move on and do something useful.”

James lingered for a few moments, but then said: “you’re right, let’s go.”

The corridor felt oddly short on the way out, and before they knew it they were back to the main hallway of the dungeon. From there they went to the first floor to double check that they had found all of the first floor corridors.

As it happened, they hadn’t found them all. Off in a corner of a hall way they found a small doorway that led to a new corridor. It was dank and dusty and contained a few classrooms which clearly hadn’t been used in decades.

“This is great!” said James. “We could use a private place like this.”

“I do believe we could.” Sirius smiled. “Perhaps tonight wasn’t a total waste after all.”


End file.
